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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23495506">when the sun rising clear throws reflections on the lake in the morn’s first tender light</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/moralfabric/pseuds/moralfabric'>moralfabric</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hetalia: Axis Powers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>First Meeting, Fluff, Human AU, Other, Summer Camp AU, Teenager AU, all that good stuff, arts camp au, damn this is quite the AU Huh., ice cream date, meet cute, umbrella sharing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 09:56:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,293</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23495506</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/moralfabric/pseuds/moralfabric</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After years of going to this summer camp, you'd think that you'd know to keep an umbrella on you.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>North Italy (Hetalia)/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>when the sun rising clear throws reflections on the lake in the morn’s first tender light</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this is honestly a love letter to the summer camp i used to go to more than it is a hetalia fanfiction. because of everything happening right now with the virus i probably won’t be able to have my last year there this summer. here’s to blue lake 😔 this is also on my deviantart @riddlesnake but the aph fanbase over there is dead so i hope it does better here</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>After years of going to this summer camp, you'd think that you'd know to keep an umbrella on you.</p><p>That is not the case.</p><p>You just got released from class for rec hour, and the sky decided now was a perfect time to start crying all over. While other students take out the umbrellas and ponchos waiting in their bags, you’re braving the rain with nothing but your camp uniform.</p><p>And your cabin is on the other side of the campus.</p><p>You sigh and begin what’s going to feel like a long, long trek. The paved walkway that sprawls through the forest and connects central camp to all of the living arrangements is slick with rain, and you're relieved to see none of the adults with bike privileges are trying to exercise them. </p><p>You're cold. The wind is battering at your face and sharpening the chill of the water. You can <em> hear </em>the thumps of raindrops against your skull, and your hair feels wet like you just stepped out of the shower or took a dip in the nearby lake. Not even taking a detour and walking under the trees instead of along the path is helping, but you're doing so anyway, just to get out of people's way.</p><p>But then, because today is not your day, you trip on a root and tumble into the mud.</p><p>You let out a curse. You caught yourself with your hands, but dropped your music folder in the process, and now your palms hurt. Thankfully, your folder didn't land in the muddiest of the mud and your music should be fine. Unlike your limbs, which are positively coated in mud at the moment. </p><p>You squeeze your eyes shut, suppressing the tears that you know would make a scene and give you a headache, but of course they still fall anyway. You’re cold and you hate these textures and you feel hyper-visible yet unnoticed at the same time. Why didn't you just bring a stupid umbrella, why didn't you just walk on the path like a normal person, why didn't you just look where you were going, why-</p><p>why isn't rain falling on you anymore?</p><p>You sense a presence behind you, and the hammering of raindrops on your back has been replaced with the benign sound of rain hitting umbrella. You turn around and see a fellow camper, one you haven't met before. The flag pin next to his name tag tips you off that he's either an exchange student or just really likes Italy. He’s looking at you with concern. </p><p>“Are you okay?” he asks. Well, the accent answers your question about the whyabouts of his pin.</p><p>“Thank you so much,” you say right away, scrambling to pick up your folder now that you don't have Mother Nature’s layer of sensory hell clouding your senses.</p><p>“Happy to help!” he replies. “Do you need help with grabbing your music?”</p><p>“No, I’ve got it,” you say. The folder is muddy, and you'd hate holding it if it weren't for the fact that your hands are muddy too. </p><p>Italian Umbrella Boy extends his free hand, and you realize he's offering to help you up. It’s an offer you gladly take, and you take his hand in yours and let him pull you up. His hand is warm (but that might be your current circumstances talking) and his grip on you is firm, even after you're up.</p><p>“I’m sorry to keep you,” you say quickly. “I’ll just run back to my unit now-”</p><p>“No, no!” the boy interrupts. “I can walk you. I don't think you have an umbrella, do you, ‘cause if you did then I bet you'd already have it out, huh. But me, I’ve got an umbrella and I can walk you to your unit!”</p><p>You smile. “Thanks, uh…” you look at his name tag and pray you're pronouncing his name right, “...Feli.”</p><p>His mouth pops into a little O in surprise before he looks down at his name tag. “Ah, you're a clever one!” he exclaims. “Yes, yes, very clever indeed…” and then he finishes his sentence by reading the name on your own tag aloud. “So, shall we get going?”</p><p>“Definitely. My unit’s that way.”</p><p>You’re already mustering up the courage to start the small talk, but Feli breaks the ice smoothly and without hesitation while you're walking:</p><p>“So, what’s your major?”</p><p>You tell him what art you're studying here at camp.</p><p>“Cool, cool! I love all of the arts, very very much, but I’m here for painting! I like the singing and the dancing and the instruments, too! My grandpa taught me all about appreciating art, and I guess it really stuck with me!”</p><p>“Where are you from?” you ask.</p><p>“Ahh, I’m from a tiny town in Italy that you probably haven't heard of,” he says. “Your camp gave me and some other kids a scholarship to come here because your choir visited my town last summer! It was very very cool; their singing was very nice.”</p><p>“Cool,” you reply before telling him your own hometown. </p><p>The conversation goes on for about five more minutes. You both like watching cartoons and you both like to draw, and you both like spaghetti, and all sorts of other fun little things in common.</p><p>You eventually reach your unit, of course; all good things must come to an end. </p><p>“Will I see you again?” you ask. Cheesy line straight out of a romance movie, but at this point you feel like you might as well be in one. It’s not every day a cute foreign exchange student walks you home in the rain.</p><p>“Probably!” he says with a big smile. “You just have to keep not having an umbrella!” This makes you laugh.</p><p>“Thank you so much for the walk, Feli,” you say. “I’m gonna go wash up now; I wanna have some time to relax before rec is over and I can't really do that with mud on me.”</p><p>“No problem!” he calls as he walks off, to his own unit, you suppose. You dash like a madman to your cabin and throw your muddied bag on the floor by your bed, anxious to get to the bathroom and have a nice long moment with the sink. <br/>
<br/>
</p><p>&gt;&gt;&gt;</p><p> </p><p>You do see Feli again, of course, and it doesn't even take braving the elements this time. The weather is significantly nicer today than it was yesterday, and your eye is caught by a familiar head of auburn hair waiting in line at the concession stand. </p><p>“Hey,” you greet as you approach him. His eyes light up and he greets you with an Italian nickname.</p><p>“I’m waiting in line for the ice cream!” he says happily. </p><p>“Mind if I join you?” you ask. </p><p>“Not at all! What are you gonna get?”</p><p>The camp’s concession stand has plenty of cold treats that will feel very nice under the sun, and after a moment of thought, you answer: “A root beer float.”</p><p>“Ah, I didn't know they had those here!” </p><p>“Yup. In fact, it’s the only way to get real A&amp;W root beer and not the generic brand stuff like what's in the vending machines.” You love talking to someone new about all the ins and outs of camp. Just wait until you tell him about the unofficial name tag dating code or the legend of Michael Jackson’s haunted tree. </p><p>Once it’s finally Feli’s turn to order, he insists you go first. So you slide your dollars through the window and ask for a root beer float, while Feli orders an ice cream with Reese’s bits in it. </p><p>The sweets appear in the smaller window next to the ordering one, and you're quick to grab your order and claim an empty bench. Feli takes a seat across from you, and right away starts digging into his ice cream. It’s kind of endearing, the childlike excitement he brings to something as simple as eating. You’re going at a slower pace while you try to find the perfect ratio of ice cream to soda.</p><p>“You know,” he begins through a mouthful of vanilla, “back at home there’s very very good gelato.”</p><p>You look up at him while stirring your float. “I bet this stuff tastes like plastic compared to real Italian gelato, huh?” you ask with a smile.</p><p>He shakes his head. “It’s good, it’s good! Gelato and ice cream are different things, ya know? It’s like trying to compare apples to oranges, I think that’s the phrase.” </p><p>“I get that.” </p><p>“You ever had Italian gelato?” Feli asks.</p><p>“I’ve had gelato before, but never, like, authentic straight-outta-Italy stuff,” you say before bringing a spoonful of ice cream to your mouth.</p><p>“Well, it’s very good! How about real Italian pasta, you ever had any of that?”</p><p>The conversation goes on like this for maybe twenty minutes, Feli firing off Italian dishes out of hope you've tried them. He’s a very endearing guy, you’re thinking. He talks with wild hand gestures (even if it flicks ice cream into your face, something which he frantically apologizes for and runs to grab a napkin), he smiles a sparkly smile, and he definitely knows his Italian cuisine. </p><p>“Wanna meet up again tomorrow?” you ask as you set your empty cup aside. </p><p>Feli’s whole face lights up. “I would love to!” he says. “Same place, same time?”</p><p>“Totally!” </p><p> </p><p>&gt;&gt;&gt;</p><p> </p><p>You do this for the next four or five days, spending your rec hour eating and chatting with Feli. He’s a really sweet guy, just generally fun to be around. His sunshine is infectious, and the second half of your day is always better than the first -- no matter how stressed you are, how tired you are, whatever stupid drama happened in your cabin, talking to Feli about it gets you heartfelt concern and a promise that everything’s gonna turn out okie-dokie alrighty.</p><p>Tonight is the night of the camper dance. Most of the popular kids already have their name tags flipped over in silent bragging that they have a date. You do not. You’ve never taken a date to the camper dance in all your years of going here, not unless you count the time you drew a cartoon character on a napkin. </p><p>After being dismissed from the orchestra shell to go about your dancely activities, you find Feli sitting at your usual bench. He has that usual dopey grin on his face, and his hands are clasped together on the table. You’re allowed nonuniform clothes for the dance, and while you're in a graphic tee and some white shorts, he’s all done up in a button-up shirt that’s probably really hot in the summer evening and dark dress pants. It fits him nicely. </p><p>“Hey,” you say as you sit down next to him. </p><p>“Hey! How are you?” </p><p>“I’m good,” you say. “I like the camper dance. I never have a partner, but it’s fun to spend an evening eating fancy snacks and watching movies in the dining hall.”</p><p>He pouts his lip, apparently deep in thought, before saying, “actually, I was wondering…”</p><p>It all happens so fast. He so elegantly swoops from his position on the bench to being on one knee on the sandy ground, a carnation from the camp store produced from his pocket.</p><p>So fast you can barely make it out, he frantically exclaims, “will you be my date to the dance I think you're really cool and pretty and I wanna date you and this is a good excuse to ask and I really like you!!!”</p><p>It takes a second for it to really click in your brain, and once it does you get really excited. Cute Italian guy who’s an absolute sweetheart just asked you out. Stay calm, don't make a scene, don't-</p><p>“Oh my goodness! Of course!” You’re grinning like an idiot. “Of course, Feli, of course!”</p><p>He pops up from his proposal stance and extends a gentlemanly hand, just like he did when you first met.</p><p>“Then may I have this dance?” </p><p>You take his hand in yours and let him pull you to your feet. He tucks the carnation behind your ear and beams at you. </p><p>You spend the evening elated, eating ice cream like you always do and watching Scooby-Doo on a huge projector in the dining hall and trying to see how much slow dancing you can get away with before an adult catches you and reminds you that it's “face to face leave some space” around these parts. </p><p>Once you're exhausted from all the running from the concession stand to the dining hall to the dance floor to the concession stand, Feli finds a calm place for the two of you to sit down together. Behind the camp store, there’s a huge tree with enough flat space at its roots to seat two people. Two people willing to sit very close together.</p><p>He sits down first, and you happily join him, resting your head on his shoulder and holding his hand. </p><p>“Are we dating now?” </p><p>The question makes you nervous to ask. I mean, you've known the guy for less than a week. Is he your <em> date</em>, or is he your camp date? How long is this going to last?</p><p>He hums in thought.</p><p>“Do you want to be?”</p><p>“Yeah,” you reply, a little too quickly. </p><p>“Well, I want to, too, so I don't see why not.”</p><p>You smile, snuggling a little closer to him, and then a sad sigh escapes you.</p><p>“After camp you're going back to Italy…”</p><p>“Oh, don’t be sad! I’ve got a phone. I’ve gotta give you my number. We can stay in touch! It can be a — ah, I can’t remember the phrase in English… a long distance relationship!” </p><p>“I’d like that.” </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i hate hetalia actually im not joking. i do not control the special interest</p></blockquote></div></div>
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